Operation M.I.A: Missing in Action (IN NEED OF REVISING)

Chapter XVII

MACKENZIE

Music: Heavy Blow from Gradius ReBirth

"What a way to start our morning," Avery sighs a few minutes into our current flight.

"Yeah. Nothing makes you feel more alive than when you're almost killed," Heath smirks, stretching his arms out.

I'm (uncomfortably) standing right next to Heath and Luke, the former of which is piloting and the latter of which is keeping an eye on the hovercraft's monitor. The second a video call notification pops up, I reach over Luke's shoulder and tap it. When I pull back, he turns around to face me and gives me an odd stare. I can feel my face burning.

Don't ask.

As always, the call is coming from our good friend, Dr. Scientist. He has his feet propped up on his desk, leaning back in his movable computer chair. He's sipping a cup of what is most likely coffee. After yawning once, he tells us, "Sorry I missed your calls earlier. An old man's gotta sleep, y'feel me?"

I laugh at his attempt to seem cool and hip and reply, "It's alright. We just wanted to give you an update on our progress."

"Talk away."

Luke walks away (likely to start his daily routine of pissing off Avery), and I continue the explanation. "We've extended our goal from rescuing Brielle to taking down the entire organization as of last night. We also had a pretty good shot at rescuing Brielle last night but just barely missed it."

Dr. Scientist stares at me funnily. "That's one big step. You kids sure you can handle it?"

"Should you even be asking that question?" I smirk.

"Nope. Well, I'm gonna go get some breakfast. I'll talk to you later." With that, Dr. Scientist exits the call. Around two seconds after he does so, Heath yells to everyone else, "I'm flying us toward this marking over France."

"Sounds good," Sam yells back.

We arrive roughly five minutes later. Similar to our last location, this entire place is surrounded by forest. Heath and Luke lead the way into the large crowd of trees and other plant life, both of them having guns out and ready to fire at any given moment. This forest isn't nearly as crowded as more forests we go into are. In fact, there's actually quite a bit of elbow room this time around. I also manage to spot a few animals hiding up in the trees.

While we're walking, I can't help but take a glance at Mia, who's chatting to Sean and Shanna. I seriously debate telling her about my probable leave happening within the next week or two, but Mia just looks too... happy right now. If I told her now, it might completely ruin her good mood, and she's been doing so well over the past couple of months with handling her emotions. And besides, like my parents told me, it probably wouldn't do her a whole ton of good to learn that another sibling of hers is going to leave her.

Plus, it's probably not a good idea to risk becoming emotional while on a mission.

Luckily, I'm distracted by some random conversation between the guys. "Oh, come on, Heath. How come every guy here has a girlfriend now and I'm still stuck being single?" Luke sighs.

"Just zip it, Luke. You've been jealous of Heath since the sixth grade anyways," Sam laughs.

"It's hilarious, too. I haven't even seen you try asking out any of the other girls in our group. I mean, you've got three choices," Heath adds. For the record, he's referring to me, Shanna, and Avery; all three of us are still single.

"Two," Avery says, not even glancing in Luke's direction. This just causes Sam and Heath to crack up hard, and I just roll my eyes and bless moments like this I get to spend with my best friends.